Android 8.0 O: Fourth Developer Preview available,Final Version in August

It is near the release of the final release of Android 8.0 O, as announced by Google at the release of the fourth developer preview on July 24.

With billions of Android devices around the world, Android has exceeded Google’s expectations. On May 17th at Google I / O 2017, Google showed some ways to bring Android to the next level, starting with the release of the new ‘O’ version without yet a full name, new developer tools help to create applications More powerful and early preview of the project is called Android GO .

Like last year, Google released the first Developer Preview of the new Android version in advance of the annual I / O event. In fact, on March 21, 2017, Google released the first DP of Android O , weeks ahead of the developers conference scheduled from 17 to 19 May 2017. However, during the Keynote on May 17th (few) new Incoming features with Android O were announced,in addition to those previously announced. With this opportunity, Google has made available the second Developer Preview which is also served as the first public beta to test on phones or tablets. On June 8, Google released the third Android O Developer Preview (AODP3), which provides Android O final APIs, Which means that third-party developers can start developing new or upgraded apps (fully up-to-date with Android O) applications. Compared to AODP2, the third Developer Preview has introduced hundreds of bug fixes and optimizations. On July 24, Google released the fourth Developer Preview (AODP4) that is the final version of the Android O Developer Preview and includes bug fixes and final development APIs; With this release, application developers can begin their final apps tests to verify their compatibility with the new Android version, and have applications compatible with O ready as soon as Google releases Android 8.0 next month. Like the previous DPs, The latest version available is compatible with Nexus 5X, 6P and Player, as well as Pixel, Pixel XL and Pixel C. Google invites those who want to try the beta version of Android O to sign up for android.com/beta. The final version of Android O will arrive in August.

Recall that with the release of AODP3, Google has confirmed that Android O is officially Android 8.0.0 and not 7.x.

We remind that Google has also released a first video dedicated to the new version of Android, which is mainly aimed at developers, but could still be interesting for everyone. Presented by Google’s Nasir Khan, the video summarizes the key features of Android O, such as new notification channels, new background limits for background applications, automatic field fill APIs, Picture- In-picture and more. You can see this video below.

In general, Android O introduces a number of new features and APIs to be used for applications.

After Lollipop, Marshmallow and Nougat the name with which will be called the next version of Android, Android O, is expected to be Android Oreo.

Following all the new features of Android O, already part of the first Developer Preview while at the bottom of the page find the first official wallpaper of Android O.

PICTURE-IN-PICTUREMODE Picture-in-Picture (PiP) mode was first seen only on Android TV, but with Android O it also comes on smartphones and tablets. It is used to shrink a moving video to be moved on the screen, leaving it in the foreground while you can do the rest in the rest of the display just as you can in the Youtube app. PiP windows support playback controls (such as Play / Pause). The “Picture in Image” mode allows users to manage two tasks simultaneously, whether you are calling a friend during a calendar check, or reading a new recipe while watching a video on a specific Cooking technique.

LIMITING APP IN BACKGROUNDLimiting the activity of apps in the background is something related to energy saving, a way to limit what an app continues to do even when it is not in use: the more it limits what it can ‘ To do more, you can extend the battery life. In particular, Andorid O Google imposes new limits on what apps can and can not do in the background, based on three categories: Background Services, Location Updates, and Implicit Broadcast. These changes will make it easier to create applications that have a minimal impact on a user’s device and battery.

FONT RESOURCES IN XMLIn Android O Fonts are now a fully supported resource type. Apps can now use fonts in XML layouts, as well as define font families in XML – declare font style and weight along with font files.

INTELLIGENT TEXT SELECTIONIn Android O, Google applies automatic learning to copy / paste text on the device to allow Android to recognize entities such as addresses, URLs, phone numbers, and email addresses. This is intended to make the copy / paste experience better by selecting the entire entity and advising the right applications to perform an action based on the selected entity type.

ADAPTED ICONSTo help integrate an app with your device’s user interface, you can now create icons that fit and that your system displays in different shapes based on default templates from your device. The system can also interact with icons, and uses them in the launcher, links, settings, sharing and dialog windows. Below is an image that shows how the icon adaptation system works.

NOTIFICATION OF CHANNELSAndroid O establishes channels for notifications, which are defined new categories of applications for the contents of the notifications. Channels allow developers to give users capillary control over different types of notifications – Users can block or modify the behavior of each single channel instead of managing all of the app’s notifications. Android O also introduces new visual effects and grouping notifications that make it easier for users to see what’s happening when they have an incoming message.

WIDE-GAMUT COLORS FOR APPLICATIONSAndroid imaging application developers can now take advantage of new devices that have a color display that can handle an extended color gamut. To view large-color images, applications must have a built-in Wide Color profile (AdobeRGB, Pro Photo RGB, DCI-P3, etc.).

AUDIO and AAUDIO API FOR PROFESSIONAL AUDIOFor maximum audio fidelity, Android O also supports high-quality audio, and Bluetooth audio codecs such as LDAC. AAUDIO is a new native API designed for apps that require high performance, low latency audio.

CONNECTIVITYAndroid O introduces new Wi-Fi features, such as Wi-Fi Aware, formerly known as Neighbor Awareness Networking (NAN). Devices with the appropriate hardware, apps and devices can discover and communicate over Wi-Fi without an Internet access point. Google is working with its hardware partners to bring Wi-Fi Aware technology to devices as soon as possible.

TELECOM FRAMEWORKTelecom Framework Connection Service API has been extended to third-party applications that integrate with the UI and work smoothly with other audio applications. For example, applications may have calls displayed and controlled in different types of user interfaces.

KEYBOARD NAVIGATIONWith the advent of Google Play apps on Chrome OS, Google saw increased use of keyboard navigation within these applications. In Android O, the development team has focused on building a predictable template for more reliable arrows and navigation tabs, helping both developers and end users.

NEW HOMESCREEN FOR ANDROID TVAndroid O introduces a new home screen for Android TV to make it easy for users to find, preview and look at the content provided by apps. Applications can publish one or more channels and users can control the channels displayed on the home page screen. Developers can create channels using the new APIs of the TvProvider support library.

TENSORFLOW LITEWith Android continuing to leverage automated learning to improve user experience, Google wants developer partners to be able to do the same. For this reason, at Google I / O 2017 Google shared an early preview of TensorFlow Lite, a project based on TensorFlow, Google’s open source learning library. TensorFlow Lite is specifically designed to be fast and lightweight for embedded use cases. Since many scenarios on the device require real-time performance, Google also works on a new neural network API from which TensorFlow can take advantage of accelerating data computation. Google plans to make TensorFlow Lite and the new API available to developers by 2017.

ANDROID GO With Android GO, Google aims to optimize features and apps for Android O to be run on low-end Android devices, those with limited system resources and in particular having 1GB or less RAM.